Bluffocracy

Britain is run by peoplewho are bluffing. At the top of our government, our media, the civil serviceand business sit men - it's usually men - whose core skill is talking fast,writing well, and endeavouring to imbue the purest wind with substance. The... Read more

Britain is run by peoplewho are bluffing. At the top of our government, our media, the civil serviceand business sit men - it's usually men - whose core skill is talking fast,writing well, and endeavouring to imbue the purest wind with substance. Theyknow a little bit about everything, and an awful lot about nothing. We knowbecause we've seen them - and we've been those men. We live in a country whereGeorge Osborne can become a newspaper editor despite never working in news,squeezing it in alongside five other jobs; where a columnist can go fromcalling a foreign head of state a wanker to being Foreign Secretary in sixmonths; where the minister who holds on to his job for eighteen months has moreexperience on the job than the supposedly permanent senior civil servants. The UK establishment hassigned up to the cult of winging it, of pretending to hold all the aces whenyou actually hold a pair of twos. It prizes 'transferable skills', rewardingthe general over the specific - and yet across the country we struggle to hiredoctors, engineers, coders and more. This book chronicles howthe UK became hooked on bluffing, how it became what we teach, what we promote,and the rules of a game that we all feel the consequences of - and why we haveto stop it.. Less